Foolish Lies
by Commander
Summary: A villain cannot feel guilt. And this is Mojo Jojo's downfall. One shot, traces of MojoXBlossom... surprise surprise...


(AN: Yeah, I should really put a lid on my PPG fanfiction output. This will probably be the last one… for awhile. (shifty eyes)

This fic is Mojo's take on his relationship with Blossom, as further chronicled in "Hero Worship" (Blossom's take) and "Refugee". And, at the risk of sounding like an echo of the author's note in "Refugee", I hate holding fics hostage by presenting them as a saga, so I've done my best to make this one a stand-alone.

All reviews are welcome, but if you flame, prepare to be laughed at. :)

The Powerpuff Girls and all characters belong to Cartoon Network and Craig McCracken, although I do keep Mojo in my closet—I keed, I keed!)

O.o.O

The city of Townsville—is in utter chaos!

The air is pierced with deafening screams of panic from those pathetic civilians. Of course they're terrified! They're running, not looking where they're going, smacking into each other and knocking themselves out. This whole town is overflowing with complete and utter pandemonium.

Such a satisfying sight!

Why are they scared, you want to ask? Well, go on! Ask it! Inquire of me the answer! For I will gladly reveal the answer and tell you that the cause of all this chaos, pandemonium, mayhem, and panic is none other than ME, Mojo Jojo!

No wonder they are all so frightened. They haven't seen me for awhile. You see, I have had to wait for the perfect time to strike. And that perfect time had to be when those accursed Powerpuff Girls were far, far away.

This is rather embarrassing to admit—but I have realized that I cannot fight the Powerpuff Girls anymore and hope to win.

Do not laugh! This is through no fault of my own—oh, who am I fooling? _I'm _the one who created those little brats in the _first _place! True, I had no clue of what I was doing—I was just annoyed that Professor Utonium was paying more attention to that bowl he was pouring various contents in than to _me! _Impossible—you should have seen the mess I made of that place, and yet his reaction—reaction, what reaction? It was if I wasn't even there.

Well, now _no one _can ignore me!

But anyway—back to the day that the Powerpuff Girls made their most unwelcome entrance. The Professor seemed to take no notice of my existence even though I was destroying everything in his precious laboratory, and so, to make a rather long and lengthy story short and to the point—I pushed him.

For many years afterwards, I thought that I had done something wonderful—for that push, while it _did _create those rotten girls, it also changed ME. My eyes were opened that day! I was no longer the simple lab assistant chimp anymore—I discovered that there was far more to the world that I would have ever _dreamed_—and I understood it ALL!

Well, not all. Amazingly, even with my immense intellect, I could never quite understand that chemical explosion I caused, the explosion that brought my true self into existence. But I decided not to worry about it—it didn't matter _how _it happened, it just mattered that it _happened_, and so I ignored those doubts of exactly why those girls were created by my meddling.

Perhaps if I had _not _ignored the absence of this answer, I might have realized sooner the horrible nightmare I had unintentionally inflicted upon myself.

You see, I am trapped. I was given the abilities, mental prowess, and most importantly, desire to conquer the world, but at a terrible cost. I cannot harm the leader of my opposition.

Well, alright, so if you wanted to get technical, I _could _harm her. But I would cause that exact same harm to myself. And Blossom, the leader of the Powerpuff Girls, is irritatingly moral and upright. She would risk any harm to her own body to protect the city, and to protect her sisters.

Why did this happen to me? Why is Blossom the one that I have a mental connection with, and not Bubbles or Buttercup? Both of them would be rendered helpless without their leader sister. I would only have to kill her, and the other two would collapse without their leader.

So, basically, I'm left with only three options. One, stop being an evil villain. _Yeah, right. _Two, attempt to isolate Bubbles and Buttercup, kill them, and convince Blossom to join my side. However, I quickly found and discovered that the probability of this plan actually _working _was about the same probability of me or anyone else leaning against a wall and suddenly falling through it into another dimension filled with monster refrigerators and singing iguanas—which is to say, not very likely at all. Even if I could separate the other two from their sister and kill them, Blossom would certainly not willingly join forces with the one who killed her family.

And so, my third option was to wait until the Powerpuff Girls left the city.

In the past, to discover information like this I would have spied on the girls. I was pretty good at that, you know! I had quite an arsenal of long-range telescopes and extremely sensitive and costly hearing devices with which to hear every breath of their conversations! And I learned a great many things from this strategy.

If only I had known there was an easier way!

I mentioned previously and earlier a mental connection with Blossom. What is this, you may well ask? Well, even I am not entirely sure. Even I do not know how or why. But I do know it exists. It took me three years to realize it existed, but now that I know it is there, it will _always _be there, haunting me. If she gets an injury as small as a paper cut, I feel it. I know that those extra thoughts in my head are not my own, but hers!

And it's not just thoughts. Every message her brain receives, mine receives that message as well. If she smells peppermints, then so do I! Peppermints, of course, being only an example—I could have used any other example and the result would be the same! My mind receives all the messages hers does! Her mind, for all intents and purposes, IS a part of my mind!

Thus, I knew that she and her sisters were in the Bahamas for a week. Heck, I knew more than that. I knew that Professor Utonium had suggested the idea to the girls, to take a break. Bubbles and Buttercup had been enthusiastic, but Blossom was hesitant at first, and it was her idea to take special precautions—such as only telling Ms. Bellum that they had left, as to not alert the villains in Townsville of their absence. As Blossom had rightfully reflected, both to herself and to the Professor, "If they knew we'd be gone a whole week, there'd be total mayhem!"

I couldn't let this opportunity slip by. I finally had the doors to taking over the world without being thwarted by the Powerpuff Girls opened to me, as the Powerpuff Girls were out of town and thus were not in town to thwart my attempts to take over the world! Thus, the doors were opened to me—metaphorically speaking, of course, as there were in fact no doors opened, except for when I left my observatory to start my domination plans, for to get out of my volcano-top observatory I have to open the doors, and… ah, forget it. The point is, the city of Townsville—and the world—was at my fingertips!

"You monster! The Powerpuff Girls will stop you!"

Ignorant citizen. I laughed. "Oh, I do not think we have to worry about that," I said. He looked angry, but didn't dare approach me. The disintegration laser gun I was holding in my hands was making him keep his distance. "Those accursed girls no longer stand in my way!"

He gasped. "You _killed _them?"

I almost told him the truth. But I then realized that overpowering these citizens would be far easier if they lost heart and believed their beloved girls dead. So I just smirked at him, and said, "Did you honestly think that the Powerpuff Girls would _always _be around whenever the world gets too scary for you? Did you think that they'd always be there to pick you up when some mean bully pushes you to the ground? That they'd always save you thankless, ignorant citizens? You thought of them as goddesses. You thought they were perfect. Well, they're not! They are flawed, just like all of you! They cannot save you now!"

He continued to stare at me, horror-struck. He said nothing. He was probably an idiot, as are the majority of the citizens of Townsville, and hardly comprehended anything that I had said. Probably only "they cannot save you now" was all that registered to him, which seemed to be putting him into a shell-shocked state.

Talking to him was a mind-numbing experience, let me tell you. I might as well have been talking to a wall, for its mental capacities are roughly the same. "You are not worth my time," I sneered. "Thus, I shall now—"

And then, something that I should have foreseen happening, happened.

Thousands of miles away, in the Bahamas, my other sense of awareness—Blossom—was interrupted from a relaxing dip in the pool with her sisters as the Professor, breathless, rushed towards them: "Girls! On the news—Townsville—Mojo Jojo is destroying the city!"

I heard, through Blossom's ears, Bubbles gasping in horror and Buttercup's irritated, "Oh, _man!" _But, even clearer than that, I could feel Blossom's crushed anguish, her mind crying out, _Oh, Mojo, how COULD you?_

The townspeople all looked at me fearfully, doubtless wondering why I had suddenly stopped talking. Their shock wouldn't last long, I knew. It wouldn't take long for them to realize I appeared incapacitated and attempt to overpower me. There were too many of them for me to fend off.

I had to take action now—the Powerpuff Girls were already on their way!

There was a little girl close to me, too scared to run, too scared to move. I quickly grabbed her and pressed my laser against her head.

"Make one move towards me and the girl gets it!"

Everyone collectively gasped. The girl made no sounds, but I could feel her limbs grow rigid under me. I looked at her eyes—they were wide with fright. She was only about five years old. The same age as the Powerpuff Girls had been when they first came on the scene, four years ago.

Why was I thinking that at a time like this?

"Don't think I won't!" I cried, snapping my glare from one side to the other. They all probably thought I was going crazy. That is, if they didn't already think so. The Powerpuff Girls were already there! I took a step backwards, still holding the girl. She finally made a sound, a sort of choking sob, cut off before anyone other than me could hear it. "There's too much damage in too many places," Blossom was shouting to her sisters. "We need to split up and help where we can, and whoever finds Mojo, call for the others!" All the while she was thinking, _Please, please, don't let it be me who finds him. _But she unknowingly was headed in my direction.

In no time at all she would be there!

The citizens, although a moronic bunch, had enough sense to make no attempts to stop me as I continued to back away from them, one step at a time. "That's it," I said to them, my eyes still darting back and forth between them, the laser still pressed firmly against the girl's head. "Make no sudden movements… no movements at all, actually…"

Blossom was nearly there! She could already see the frozen crowd of people who were too scared to stop me. Why couldn't she have gone in the other direction?

"Make no movements, any of you…"

She was there!

I looked her straight in the eye. "And that goes for you too."

I felt her inwardly cry. It was a selfish kind of a cry, crying for herself, but crying for me too. Oh, isn't the city's savior so troubled! If only they knew! Townsville would likely drive her out of town if they did. She loves me. Blossom, a nine-year-old, the city's hero, with moral codes that put Saint Peter to shame, loves me! I have nearly killed her before, come close to nearly killing her on numerous occasions—I broke her little five-year-old heart, and she still loves me. It drives her crazy to look at me. She hates to fight me, and yet she loves it too. She loves making me suffer for how I've made her suffer. Foolish girl, and yet she is still infatuated with me! I know this, but she doesn't know I know! She doesn't know I know everything that she knows!

What an actress she is. Her face betrayed none of her love. She scowled at me, the lout, the one who had caused all this destruction, that immoral monster who was threatening the life of a child. "Let her go, Mojo!" She sounded so confident. I knew better.

"I mean it," I said, in a low voice. I knew she heard me. "I'll kill her if you so much as hover one inch closer!"

"Let her go!" she repeated. "She's an _innocent!"_

I felt my blood boil. _"She's _an innocent? _I'm _an innocent! Do you think I asked to be this way?"

She was unable to move either. I felt every one of her wordless thoughts scream silently through her mind—how scared she was for the girl, how scared she was to approach me, how infatuated she was with my untamed, wild, evil, powerful look, how much she pitied me and wanted to throw her arms around me and hug me…

My finger hooked around the trigger. Blossom gasped.

I was going to pull it. I was going to kill that girl. I really was. And I would have, if not for Blossom.

Because I could feel her every emotion. I could feel her grief, already crushing her, crushing me, and I knew if I killed that girl, Blossom's guilt would be a thousand fold. I know Blossom. I know her better than anyone else. I know her better than _she _knows herself. If I had killed the girl, Blossom would have believed it was her own fault—it was, it already was!—for not interfering and saving her. She'd never forget it. Her memory is astounding in its clarity—she doesn't realize this, for she has never known otherwise. She would never forget it. And neither would I.

Her grief, her sorrow, her pain… is now my pain.

I let go of the girl and dropped the laser.

It was then that I finally totally and completely realized—_I would never do it. _I could _never _take over the world. And why? Because it would destroy the heart of a nine-year-old girl! How dare she, how dare she? She had already defeated me, and she didn't even have to bat an eye. I felt her wondering why I had let the girl go, relieved but puzzled at the same time. She had no clue of the power she had over me, power from only her foolish, misplaced love. I hated her. Hated her.

"Why don't you kill me?" I rasped out at her.

God, did her heart hurt. With every word I said it was if I was twisting it more and more out of shape, disfiguring and scaring it, but never squeezing out the life of her love. And yet the more I did so, the more she pitied me, the more she cried for me, the more she loved me.

"Because I'm not like you," she spat out. She looked so angry. She was, but not as angry as I was.

"Yes you are."

Her upper lip twitched for a moment, but inside she screamed with fury and despair, for she knew that I was right. At least she knew that one thing.

"No, I'm not," she insisted. "I don't threaten innocent lives. I don't lay carnage and devastation to cities in which thousands of people live. I'm not insane."

"You want exactly what I want," I said. "You want to be accepted and loved. Don't you see that if we were to rule the world, we could have anything we desire? With your help…" I let it go.

"Stop trying to tempt me. It won't work." She said so, but I could tell that the idea intrigued her.

"It's not a tempt, Blossom." She inwardly shivered. She likes it when I say her name. She loves it when I treat her as an individual. As if I have ever done otherwise. I had known her name before the city did! "It's a promise. All I need is your help, and we could have anything. I would give you _anything _you wanted. I swear I would. I only ask for your alliance… for your devotion."

Whatever she wanted. She wanted me! I asked for her devotion, but I already had it! Oh, you should have felt her inward struggle. She loved me, she was crazy about me, she deep down wanted to rule the world with me at her side. But she hated what I did. I knew she would refuse. It was a pathetic last attempt, one that I knew would fail. Perhaps I only did it to cause Blossom more torment.

She opened her mouth to answer me, although she didn't know what to say.

"Blossom!"

It was Buttercup. She and Bubbles must have followed the trail of wreckage to me. "Why didn't you call for help?"

_I don't need help, _she thought, deeply offended. I smiled. "I was distracted," she said.

"How?" asked Bubbles. "What did he do?"

_He's enticing me, that's what he's doing! _"Nothing we can't handle! Come on, girls!"

Curses, I knew what was coming next, even without knowing Blossom's thoughts.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

I had lost my will to fight back. It only took one punch from each of them to knock me to the ground.

"What's wrong with you, Mojo?" Bubbles asked. "We never defeat you this easily." Bubbles is irritating and deceptively cute in an annoying way, but her intelligence is often underestimated. She's smarter than she seems.

"He just knows that he's no match against us," said Buttercup. I would like to be able to read her mind as well, and know if she really is as confident as she seems, or if, like Blossom, it is merely an act.

They stood over me, waiting. And waiting. Blossom was confused. I was deviating from the script, ignoring my lines. She—and presumably Bubbles, Buttercup, and the citizens watching—were waiting for me to yell "Curse you Powerpuff Girls!" as I normally do.

But I had no wish to curse Bubbles and Buttercup at that moment. It was Blossom who had done this to me. It was Blossom who had destroyed my dreams, who had made it so that I could never take over the world without feeling her grief, guilt, and despair. I couldn't kill her, for I would kill myself. I couldn't kill her sisters, because I would have to live with her sorrow. Her sorrow would be mine.

I cared nothing for Bubbles and Buttercup. Blossom was the only one who mattered.

She was the only one worthy of my hatred.

"I hate you, Blossom," I said slowly.

I finally got an outward reaction from her that matched her inward reaction. Her eyes grew wide in confusion and hurt shock. I could feel how much I hurt her with those four words.

"What?" she whispered aloud. Her sisters and the other onlookers most likely shared her confusion. I was signaling Blossom out? How could I? Why would I do something like _that?_

"I hate you," I said again, looking her straight in the eyes.

I nearly went into a full-blown rage, but my carefully calculated, cold-blooded statement crushed Blossom more than any screams of anger could. She knew I had every right to hate her, just as she had every right to hate me. But she had foolish dreams, she did. Dreams of that impossible offer I had made. Dreams of her and me, just the two of us, creating a perfect world together, where we could be happy. I was merely bringing her back to reality.

She knew that she would never allow me to win! Why was she so upset—this was all _her _doing! She had destroyed me willingly, yet she still was crying inside for me? How dare she? _How dare she? _She loves me—but what gives her that right? She thinks it will make me soft. But she's wrong. It only angers me. It only makes my hatred for her stronger.

Ugh—irony—I hate it! I'm so miserable because I'm loved—if she didn't love me she wouldn't care what I did, and I wouldn't feel her guilt and despair! She's _hurting _me by loving me! If only she knew! Damn her!

"Damn you," I said aloud before I could stop myself. "Damn you to _hell, _Blossom!"

Blossom gasped. So did Bubbles and Buttercup, I think. It wasn't as if they hadn't heard that kind of language—or worse—from other "bad guys", but I guess I always had a reputation of being more refined… well, as far as language was concerned, anyway. And, of course, I was still signaling Blossom out, and still no one could figure out why.

She might have been a superhero, but she was a nine-year-old girl too.

She was unable to hold back the tears from her eyes.

And then something odd happened to me. I felt her emotional pain, of course. But I felt something else too, different yet the same. It was more pain, but it felt like it was only contained to my own consciousness.

I made a little girl cry. I made a little girl cry! So? I am Mojo Jojo—making little girls cry is one of the perks of my job! And not just any little girl, either, but Blossom, a Powerpuff Girl, the bane of my existence! I should have been _gloating _over the fact that I made her cry!

But I wasn't.

I felt sorry for her.

The police were there, grabbing me roughly and handcuffing me. They probably expected me to struggle. I didn't. What would have been the point? I had lost. I had lost everything. I had lost at _life. _They threw me into the car as if I was a sack of laundry, and only then did I hear Buttercup speak through Blossom's ears.

"Whoa, Mojo's totally _lost _it!"

I had to stop myself from yelling through the door, "I have not lost it, I have _gained _it! I have gained Blossom! And it is _her _fault that I am going insane!"

"Don't cry, Blossom," said Bubbles, in a sickeningly sweet voice. I felt her hug Blossom. It angered me even more. Blossom has _no idea _what it's like to be unloved! She had no right to be so depressed!

"Yeah, you can't take to heart what Mojo says," said Buttercup, sounding annoyingly arrogant.

What did she mean by _**that? **_That I have nothing important to say? That I am nothing but an ignorant, pompous windbag?

But my anger vanished and was replaced by shock when I realized that Blossom was thinking the exact same thing. She was offended on my behalf. _Mojo's brilliant, _she thought fiercely to herself, _and he has every right to hate me! I'm crying because it's true!_

"I'll be fine, okay?" she lied, wiping the tears from her eyes. She had stopped crying—outwardly, at least—and had resumed her mask of confidence and arrogance that all of Townsville was so accustomed to. "I don't know what came over me. I guess… I guess I just don't like to hear anyone say those kinds of things to me."

"Who would?" snorted Buttercup. "What did you do to him that made him so mad at you?"

_I don't know—I don't know! Was it because I refused to kill him, or join with him, or—or what? I don't know! _"No idea," she said in a haughty tone. "He was acting even weirder than usual, though. Maybe he's on some sort of meds."

"Jeez, who knows with Mojo?" scoffed Buttercup. "Anyway, the important thing—"

"—is that we stopped him," agreed Blossom. "Come on, let's go help clean up."

Everyone assumed she was over her outburst, and seemed to have already forgotten about it.

Only she and I knew the truth.

O.o.O

I was led to my cell—yes, _my _cell. They had it specially designed so that the ease of my escape was hampered, seeing as I had escaped so often in the past. There was really no point in escaping now, anyway. I'd be out in a few months. They legally can't keep me in jail for extended periods of time, because I am not human. There's some sort of animal rights law that forbids them to lock me up for life. As if that stops the zookeepers. At any rate, they never bothered to change it. Townsville seemed to grow accustomed to my attacks—"Oh, Mojo Jojo's attacking again, quick, get the Powerpuff Girls right on that. By the way, what's for dinner?" How complacent they all were! It didn't matter anyway. My days as a villain were effectively over now, brought to a screeching halt by a little girl's tears.

The other inmates, upon seeing me brought into that accursed prison block for the umpteenth time, fell into their usual ritual as well—this entire city is in a rut, from its heroes to its villains—the ritual of mocking me. "Look who lost again—give it up, fucking loser!"

Usually I snapped back with far wittier retorts, but not that day. I said nothing.

"Too upset to talk," sneered another. They all laughed. I guess I can't really blame them. In their situation, when anyone is brought in who is even more of a disgrace than you, it is only natural to snub him. And I was the most disgraced of them all. I had a cell that practically had my name on it.

SMACK!

The inmates howled with laughter as I rubbed my cheek. One of them had thrown a pack of cigarettes at me.

It didn't hurt physically, but it hurt my _pride. _I knew exactly _why _I was the brunt of their jokes, and had I been in their shoes I probably would have laughed too.

But I still felt every word, every laugh, descend upon me like a million cigarette packs. They had a completely valid reason for laughing—I _was _a failure. I _did _deserve to be mocked. It was the same old story, for four years now—Mojo tries to take over the world, Powerpuff Girls stop him, Mojo goes to jail, Mojo steams for a bit, Mojo gets out of jail and starts the cycle over again, refusing to realize that it was all pointless and stupid.

I have never hated myself more than I did at that moment.

_Why does he do this to the town, to me, to himself?_

It was Blossom. In my anger at the inmates I had almost forgotten about her. She was cleaning up the wreckage I'd caused, her mind clinging to thoughts of me despite her frenzied efforts to the contrary. She was by herself, on the beach, collecting debris. The dock was still intact, surprisingly. I saw it through her eyes.

And suddenly, she was cowered underneath it, away from any harsh eyes, crying freely. She said nothing through her sobs, but I felt her thoughts, _Why, why would he do this? I know he's better than this—he MUST be—I love him…_

Suddenly, the mocking of the inmates seemed less hurtful, less important.

"What is she _doing?" _I said aloud as I was unceremoniously tossed into my cell, just as I had been in the police car earlier. Realizing I had spoken aloud, I covered my mouth with my hands to keep myself from speaking again. Luckily all the inmates had grown tired of laughing at me and had turned to other things.

"What is _who _doing?"

The voice came from the cell to the left of me. As best I could, I peered through the bars and to my left, and saw a disheveled, crazy-looking old man peering back at me, most of his teeth gone. He looked mad. But then again, I probably did too.

"What business is it of yours, tramp?" I snapped.

"You made it my business when you said it," he said, cracking a wild grin. I shuddered.

"What difference does it make who it is anyway?" I snapped. "I'll never be in contact with those accursed Powerpuff Girls again anyway, so it makes no difference whatsoever."

"Why not? Ain't you Mojo Jojo, the number one antagonist of the Powerpuff Girls? You're not throwin' in the towel now, are you?"

"I should have ages ago! I should have known I could never win!" I must have sounded insane, but at that moment I didn't really care. I _felt _insane. And an insane man was the most suitable witness to my insanity.

He laughed again, flashing his disturbing toothless grin. "Oh, I see what it is!" he said.

"Doubtful," I muttered.

"You can't bring yourself to kill 'em, ain't that so?"

My body jerked in shock. How did he know? "No, that is not true at all! I could easily kill Bubbles! She is a pushover! Buttercup is so headstrong that she will likely bring about her own destruction! And Blossom…" Curses, why did I have to stop there?

There came that laugh again, a sort of high-pitched, wheezy chuckle. "I figgered it was Blossom!"

In an instant I was as far to the left as I possibly could be, leaning over towards him as much as the bars of my cell would allow. "Do not insinuate, suggest, or imply that I feel any sort of affection towards Blossom whatsoever!" I hissed. "I despise that girl with every nerve in my body, much more than either of her sisters! If I could, she would be the _first _I would kill! I _hate _her!"

"You're more human than you realize," said the old man, still smiling. "That's what everyone thinks, and what you think too. You think you can't hate someone and love them at the same time. Hell, hate and love ain't opposites—they go hand in hand!"

"How is that so? Your foolish talk is foolish."

"That's why divorce rates are so high! It's not because people stop loving their spouses—it's 'cause they realize that they hate them! They get married all starry-eyed, not realizin' that they don't even know the person they're marryin'! When they start to get to know 'em, they see all their faults and hate 'em for them! They don't realize that to love someone you have to deal with every blasted thing about 'em! The couples that stay married for forty, fifty years realize that, though! They've worked through their hatred of each other! And they become a stronger couple because of it!"

"Listen," I growled, feeling my face grow red with fury, "I do not love anyone, least of all a Powerpuff Girl! Do you know what Blossom has done to me? Of course you don't know—even _she _doesn't know! She doesn't know that I can feel her silly tears for me right now, that I can feel her pathetic pain that she allows to eat up her heart because she foolishly loves me!" I stopped suddenly, realizing that I had told him what had been, up until that point, my own secret. Oh well. He was a madman. People would assume it was just his crazed rants. "Disregarding all that, she is my _enemy._ How could I love my enemy?"

"You know her better than anyone else," he said with a playful shrug. "Besides, you just said that she loves you."

"I am not a foolish little girl like she is," I snapped. "And that's another thing—we are totally different species! She is a human, and I am a chimpanzee!"

"Totally different?" snorted the old man. "DNA wise, chimps and humans are similar enough to be evolutionary blood-brothers. Besides, she ain't a human. Humans have fingers and can't fly. And you ain't a chimp. Chimps can't talk and don't have their brains stickin' outta their heads."

"But…" I stammered. "But… but she is just a child! She's a nine-year-old child! Stop insinuating that I have a sexual attraction to a nine-year-old child!"

"I never said that, you did," he said, his wheezy chuckle back yet again. "And even so, what do you think half the guys in this clink are in for?"

I let go of the bars and stumbled back into a corner of my cell. "No, no, _no," _I murmured to myself, "I _can't_ love her… I simply _can't…"_ I forced myself to stop thinking about her, but it was for naught, for she was there in my mind anyway, and I knew she would never, ever leave it.

_This is silly, _she thought fiercely, drying her tears again. _I need to stop acting like this. I've got a town to take care of. I can't let my stupid, insignificant little crush that has no basis at all affect my duties._

I felt my eyes grow wide.

She was lying to herself. To _herself._

That little liar. She could still feel her emotions clawing at her insides, but she was denying her own heart. She was still acting as if she was in control of every aspect of her life.

Just like me.

"I love her," I murmured before I could stop myself.

The more she fought down her feelings, the more mine arose. "I _love _her, dammit!" I cried, slamming my fists in the ground. "I love every stupid little thing about you, Blossom! Your lies, your shrewd little mind, the way you seem to make everybody's problems completely _vanish _other than my own, the way your hair frames your face—damn you, _damn you!_ I _love _you… how could you _do _this to me?" I finished helplessly, still lying on the ground, unable to move save my shaky, sob-like breathing.

She was flying now, still picking up debris, still saying to herself, _I need to stop acting like a love-sick fool, I CAN'T love him, I'm just being stupid…_

If only she knew what she had just done to me.

Blossom. My most hated enemy. The single reason I was in this prison cell, unable to ever even attempt to reach my goal. And all I wanted to do was comfort her, that poor, pitiful little girl. God, how I wanted to yell, scream it at her, make her know my thoughts as well as I knew hers so she could know just how reciprocated her feelings were!

"Now who's the fool…" I whimpered.

I could not come to her, knowing everything about her as I did. _She _would have to come to _me, _by her own free will. It would be taking a risk for her, a risk to trust me again as she once had. I managed to stand up. Somehow I knew that someday, probably not for many years, but someday Blossom would seek me out. She couldn't live like this forever.

In the meantime, I would be with her, although she didn't know it. Every single thing that she will experience, I will too. I'll suffer with her. It's not as if I have a choice, but somehow, I _wanted _to anyway.

She was still fixing up the town, making it beautiful again, as only she really can. I saw through her eyes a citizen smile up at her, saying, "Thank you, Blossom!"

I crawled onto my lumpy cot. Someday I would be able to thank her as well, thank her for driving me insane, make her realize exactly what she put me through. Someday she'd understand.

But for now, there was always our well-adhered to script. We could both pretend to continue to follow it.

"Curse you, Powerpuff Girls," I said. But I was smiling.


End file.
